A Never Ending Chain
by WordAddict618
Summary: The ocean has always been Moana's first love or: the story of ace!Moana


Moana Waialiki's first love was the ocean. It chose her, protected her, guided her. It had brought her to Maui, and given her the heart of Te Fiti. Without it, she would never have found the courage inside of herself to do what was needed.

The ocean, she had always felt, cared for her in a strange way she could never explain. Maui scoffed at the idea.

"The ocean doesn't care. It just needed someone," he said, carefully tucking a flower into the intricate braid he had formed in her hair. "You don't need it. It needed you."

Moana shrugged, and turned to look out at the sea. Out here, the coastline was different but the horizon was the same. The endless line of sea meeting sky still called her the way it had when she was a young girl.

"Maybe we both needed each other," she said.

The feeling doesn't leave as she gets older. The call for adventure and the ocean has always been in her blood, and she isn't surprised when one day she feels a calling deep inside to explore, to race the wind and feel the salt spray on her face.

"Do you think I should go?" she asks Maui. This time, she's the one tucking flowers in his hair, the little tattoo on his back offering wordless advice and smiling when she gets it right.

"I don't know."

"You're not being very helpful," she tells him. The wrinkles around her eyes are deeper, her hair has a bit more gray in it, but she still feels the ocean as much as she ever did.

"What?" Maui asks. The tattoo on his back shrugs unhelpfully. "You know if you go out there I'm coming with you."

Moana tucks in the last bit of hair into the tidy bun she's created. "Really?"

"Why not?" Maui looks out at the ocean. "Never hurts to have a few more adventures."

She doesn't leave immediately. Her people need a chief, after all. She waits for a successor, for the day she can follow the ocean's call.

"Will you be married?" the elders ask.

"I don't know," she answers truthfully. She supposes she must decide, but that is not a decision she's looking forward to.

Once again, Maui solves her dilemma. In the form of a hawk, he swoops down onto the beach beside her one morning while she's dancing on the beach the way her grandmother Tala taught her.

"I brought you someone," he says softly, shifting back into a human.

"What?" Moana asks, "Why are you whispering? And what's that you're hiding behind your back?"

"Here," he says, offering her a basket. "I found her."

Moana doesn't know what he's talking about until she looks inside the basket. It's a little girl, with black hair and eyes. She blinks and yawns, reaching one hand toward the sky, and Moana notices her wrist. There's a seashell tied around it, with a familiar spiral symbol.

"Thank you," Moana whispers, holding the child close. She turns to thank Maui, but he's gone already and all she can see is a shark swimming away. She waves one hand over her head, "Thank you!" she shouts again, as loud as she can. The shark waves a fin and keeps swimming.

"I will name you Leinani," she tells the little girl staring up at her with wide eyes.

She raises Leinani in the village, shows her how to find her way in the ocean and how to listen to the call of her heart. She tells her all the stories of her grandmother Tala, and shows her how to read the stars. Her father and mother show the little girl how to listen to people and govern disputes, how to make wise decisions and be a good chief.

Moana's hair is gray all the way through when she loads her boat for the last time. She bids her people goodbye and places the headdress on her daughter herself, marking her as chief.

With the village waving goodbye from the shore, she sails out into the ocean, ready for whatever the sea has in wait for her.

"Are you ready?" Maui asks her, swooping down from the sky with his fishhook to land beside her on her boat.

She laughs, loud and free, pulling the sail of her boat around to face his fishhook made of stars. She winds her hair up in a bun, exposing the tattoos along her shoulders and back so he can read the story written on her body.

"Let's go," she smiles, dipping her hand into the waves and feeling for the current.

She knows the ocean has been waiting for her.


End file.
